


We've known each other for a lifetime

by avengercat



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-02-22
Packaged: 2018-09-15 16:36:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9244802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avengercat/pseuds/avengercat
Summary: Natasha was just doing a favor for a friend. Set after CATWS.





	1. The Spy and the Soldier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ashes0909](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashes0909/gifts).



“Did you read the file on that Widow chick? Crazy right?!”

“Naw man, haven’t you ever watched a movie? Read a book? Those spy agencies are always full of double agents and people who switch sides all the time. The creepy thing is that it’s like, the government doesn’t even know what the government is doing.”

“Is that creepy? Seems normal to me. Like it’s a big family and you assume your distant cousins are fine until someone gets sick or needs money.”

“And then since everyone’s together and catching up you end up getting the nth degree about why you aren’t as successful as your younger cousin?”

From her seat behind the two teenagers, the redhead bit into a fry to hide her smile. The youths had such an innocent view of government. It was clear they’d remained untouched by the horrors it could hide. If she had ever been so candid and free as a child, she couldn’t remember it. 

Halfway through her fries, her skin prickles. Someone dangerous is near. Animal instinct encourages movement - _fight or flight!_ \- but training wins. _Stay alert, keep as you were_. And practicality of course. Food may be plentiful now but it’s a resource. Waste not, want not. 

A man slouches towards her, face shadowed by his upturned hoodie. “Not exactly where I pictured us having our first date.” 

“Who said this was a date?” she replies.

“Maybe we were told different things. Can I have one of those?” Right code. The man pushes his hood back and smiles at her. 

“Fries aren’t for sharing.” She smiles back. 

He laughs. “I thought that was bacon. I heard you’re into photography?” 

“I like pictures.”

“I know just the gallery to take you to. Shall we?”

Natasha pretends to think for a moment as she finishes her snack. “Let’s.”

- 

“You couldn’t just give me a USB?”

“You wanted proof, I got the originals. Hydra didn’t stay underground so long by digitizing everything.”

_Or the digital files had been wiped along with Zola._

The gallery is a cluttered alley and the pictures look like they’ll be fascinating. Natasha glances through the slim folder and almost misses the stiletto aimed at her abdomen. Almost.

She knocks the attacking arm away. _They always expect you to run away, so do the opposite_. She ducks under his arm to elbow the surprised man in the gut and hits him hard in the kidneys from behind. He collapses a second after the knife hit the ground but there are five shadows leeching out from behind the debris cover the alley provides.

 _Ugh, Should have carried a bag_. Natasha estimates her possible trajectories and drops the file on a cleaner patch of pavement. 

Numbers One and Two rush towards her. Natasha feints to the right, goes left and kicks one into the other. While they struggle to their feet, Three, Four and Five come for her in a triangular formation. They have tazing sticks, and having electrocuted herself recently, she’s not keen on a repeat. 

Natasha nimbly avoids Three’s baton coming towards her and uses the wielder’s shoulder as a boost to kick Four in the face. She uses her weight and momentum to keep her booster spinning. Unfortunate Four gets a second hit from the Three’s baton - hard enough that Three loses his grip - before Natasha dismounts. 

Three lasts marginally longer than the other two, blocking Natasha’s strike to his throat. His martial arts training shows but it’s nothing compared to hers. Plus Natasha isn’t averse to fighting dirty against dishonorable opponents like this.

Five is burly and overconfident. Probably thinks he’s intimidating, between his size and the firm grip he’s got on the tazer’s power. Natasha can practically feel the arrogance oozing off of him. The Hulk of the group, but considering the people she’s fought beside, this is a 10 cent copy. 

_Pride cometh before the fall_. And he does fall, satisfyingly hard, tripped by her foot, aided by her fists. That he falls onto his faintly humming tazer isn’t her fault. He should’ve just turned it on when he was ready to use it. She smiles faintly.

Her informant should be stirring. She rotates her wrist, planning on meeting his far from stealthy approach with a punch. Time to get some answers. 

A rush of air. Something - no, someone - coming from above. There’s a crunch of fist and nose colliding and her Judas hits the ground for the second time. The newcomer faces away from her. She’d call it trusting if her senses didn’t scream that this man is far more dangerous than the pack she just faced. This was who had been watching her, she’s sure of it.

She braces herself for a real fight, yet the man walks away from her. She narrows her eyes at his path.

“That file is mine. I didn’t need your help.”

He ignores her, picking it up, but goes no further. His body language is relaxed as he opens it but his shoulders stiffen at the contents. He pages through it unhurried. Natasha relaxes marginally. If they were going to fight, it didn’t look like it would be a surprise attack. 

Eventually, she approaches, slow and careful, like he’s a wild animal. She goes as far as her informant and studies his face. It looks odd. She reaches down and pinches off a nanomask to see the man’s real face. No one she knows.

She sighs. “You didn’t have to knock him out. How am I supposed to question him now?”

A noncommittal grunt, the first sound he’s made. She watches him reach the end of the file. He closes it, holds it in both hands. She waits.

“Why do you want this?” His voice is rough, like he hasn’t spoken in a while, but his tone is even.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” There’s a harder edge now. 

She debates for a moment. “For a friend.”

“SHIELD?”

“They’re gone.”

“Just like Hydra.” He sounds wry, like he knows too that while shattered, both organizations still function. His hooded head tilts a fraction. “People coming.”

He jumps and catches a window ledge, acrobatically swinging himself up the side of the alley towards the shadow of a fire escape ladder that’s flat against the alley wall. Halfway up he looks down at her, gestures a silent ‘Well?’ with the file. 

She catches the faint sound of voices approaching and looks at the fallen bodies. She sighs and follows. 

-

They build into a run across rooftops and while she’s always a step behind him, it doesn’t feel like a chase. It feels...familiar.

He starts to slow down when they’re a few blocks away and stops atop an older building. People live here. There are clothes and sheets drying on lines in the early autumn sun. Amidst their wafting, the man looks still as a statue. 

Natasha breathes in and out, slowly, considering. When it’s clear he’s not going to speak first, she asks. “Are you going to give me back my file now?”

He doesn’t give a sign that he’s heard for a long time, then finally in that disused voice. He moves rather than replying, holding the file back towards her. She hesitates for a moment, then reaches out. Her fingers are pinched around its width when he speaks.

“Your friend. Wants to use?” 

She feels his tension rise as she considers her answer. _Stupid, shouldn’t have gotten so close_. She purses her lips. “Find. Help, I think. If he can be helped.”

Her answer must satisfy because he lets go, arm falling back to his side. “He can’t be helped.”

“My friend doesn’t think so.”

A heartbeat. “Your friend is Steve Rogers.”

Natasha goes on guard. If he knows that, then he knows who she is. 

“He’s not ready to see him. Not yet.” He sounds certain, then his voice goes low and quiet. ”Maybe not ever.” 

Natasha absorbs that information. “And how do you know this?”

“It’s my file.” 

The man’s hands come up and lower his hood. Shoulder length dark hair. She takes an involuntary step back, knees bending fractionally, prepared for battle.

“Winter Soldier.”


	2. Coffee Deals

Natasha knows it’s him without a doubt though his clothing is wrong. That was why his movements were familiar. He turns and she inhales sharply. His face. She’d only glimpsed him from a distance before; now that she can take in the dark blue eyes, windows to his haunted soul, she knows. She’s met him before. A lifetime ago under a different name, in another country.

“Don’t give that to him.” The Winter Soldier commands. A breath later he adds grudgingly. “I’d consider it...a favor.”

Natasha is fleetingly tempted to say she’ll do it and he won’t owe her anything. She thinks his reaction would be all the payment she’d need. But practicality wins. It always does. He looks like he’d flee if she refused, and given his skill set, even she would have difficulty locating him. No one had ever found the Winter Soldier before after all. That was what made him the bogeyman of little Black Widows. Then again, how were they to know that he was also their American?

“You know that won’t stop him from looking…” she begins, planting the seed. “Was that group Hydra?”

He considers. “Possibly. Low ranking if so?”

How positively chatty he is now that he wants something. 

“You can find out?” It’s a rhetorical question. The way he looks at her makes her smile, amused. “I’ll make you a deal.”

He looks at her suspiciously and she delights internally at his struggle when he realizes she’s not saying anything more until he makes some acknowledgment. 

“What.”

-

“Be careful Steve, you might not want to pull on that thread.” Natasha warns, leaving her friend with the slim file. 

_I said I’d help you find him, not catch him._ Her lips begin to quirk, the start of an ironic smile, before training washes her features neutral and she adjusts to vaguely sad. Cemeteries were solemn places after all. Even if you’d just had a chat with the person who was supposed to by lying six feet under. Fury had burned his cover with his fake death and she'd burned all her old ones exposing Hydra. Like she'd told Steve, she needed time to figure out a new one. 

Natasha leaves the quiet cemetery and disappears into the rush of public transportation. She plays a round of Bejeweled on her phone and half hurries after a group of college students, blending like the distracted friend of the group, to a hipster cafe. She orders two coffees. They come in a tray in a little bag. Useful if the goon trying to tail her had actually been successful. It would've been a shame to have to spill the drinks if he'd had friends. 

Whether she was being tailed by the government or the remnants of SHIELD or Hydra, it was becoming tiresome. They might not be good it, but they were persistent. And lucky, at least in refinding her when she kept and irregular schedule. Sometimes, luck was all you really needed. But until her tail actually lucked out, Natasha wasn't going to make it easy. 

In the clear now, she walks a few blocks, changing her gait from a lounging college student to a busy adult as the neighbourhoods change. She goes up to the door of a discreet red brick apartment building. Time to go visit a friend. 

Cecilia Grant worked in real estate. She was cheerful, friendly enough, and smiled a lot. She went travelling a lot for her job, but Natasha knew when she was in. 

“It’s me. I’m coming up,” she says into her phone when the line's picked up. She keys in the apartment code and the door buzzes open. Up the narrow stairway and a couple steps down a well-lit hall, a door opens. She walks in. 

The apartment is simple. Not a real estate dream, but a space made up as best it can be, touched with small cozy accents. The sofa bears a slight indent from its former occupant who appears to have been reading something on her StarkPad. 

Her friend doesn’t return to the couch after closing the door, but follows her to the alleyway kitchen and watches as she sets down the bag on the scant counterspace. She pulls out the coffees and opens the fridge. 

“Hello Cecilia. It’s nice to see you. How was your day?I think I saw you on TV,” Natasha chirps brightly. She continues in a breathier voice. “Oh really? That can’t’ve been me. I’m nowhere good looking enough- Nonsense! You’re as pretty as daisy in spring!

“That refresh you on Talking With People 101? How to Greet Your Host?” Natasha turns back and continues without pause, eyes narrowed. “Didn’t we have milk?”

The silence grows heavy and Natasha thinks she detects a hint of guilt. 

“We...did.” The Winter Soldier finally answers.

“And the reason it’s gone is..?”

“I threw it out.” 

Natasha is about to press when she sees a twitch in his jaw. Like a bad memory suppressed. His eyes even look faintly apologetic. She draws a breath in and lets it out in a soft huff. 

“Did you throw out the sugar too?”

He shakes his head ‘no’ once, a very economical movement. She opens the correct cabinet and retrieves the jar. To her surprise, he offers her a spoon he’d retrieved....when had he got the spoon out of the drawer? He really was just as good as legend.

“You want some too?” She asks, adding sugar into one cup.

He debates. Hesitates. He eyes the cups, suspicious. 

“Just coffee.” She says. He doesn’t seem appeased. She sighs and drinks a sip from her cup and another from his, making sure he can see she hasn’t cheated somehow. He watches her now, looking for signs of discomfort or poisoning. Slowly he reaches out and takes a sip from his cup, swallows, then before she can protest he takes a sip from hers as well. He swills the mouthful around once and swallows again. 

He holds out his cup. “Sugar. Thanks.” 

She’ll take that as thanks for more than the sugar. “You can do your own.” 

Coffee sweetened to her satisfaction, Natasha takes her cup out the other side of the kitchen and settles on the previously unoccupied side of the couch. The darkened StarkPad screen is tempting but she but doesn’t touch it. She catches the faint sound of liquid being stirred.

“Put the sugar away when you’re done with it?” She calls and puts her feet up on the table. She drinks quietly and listens. About half a minute later she thinks the sugar is returned. The sound of the cup leaving the counter and then being set down again. Odd. The tap turns on and a there’s a couple taps of metal meeting metal. The muted clatter of what must be the spoon being placed on the drying rack. She laughs silently and hides her smile in her cup. The Winter Soldier doing dishes in her apartment without being asked. How unexpected.

He returns from the kitchen and then stops, looking at her. His brows draw together. Natasha looks politely back at him, raising her own in askance. 

“Feet off the table,” he concludes. Once pronounced, he’s back in motion, taking his seat. 

Natasha debates leaving them up, it is her apartment after all, but decides not to fight it. Come to think of it, she’d gotten just about the same request from Steve a few days ago. Just how much of his past did the Soldier remember? 

They drink in silence. Out of the corner of her eye Natasha watches his grip on the cup become more relaxed. Halfway finished, she speaks.

“He’s going to search for you.”

“We knew that.”

“He’ll find you.”

“Not anytime soon.”

“He’s already enlisted a friend. You’ve met him.”

“He’s also got you.”

“And we have a deal. He’ll goose chase until you’re ready. Unless he gets lucky.”

The Soldier nods. Frowns. Curses softly. 

“Hmm?”

“Steve Rogers _is_ lucky.”

Natasha reflects on her friend, surviving through illness, being picked for a dangerous experiment and being a success. Not dying in war. Being found, and by people with the expertise to revive him. Whether or not he agreed, Steve was definitely lucky. Still.

“Some might say you’re lucky too.”

The Soldier snorts. Another disagreer.

“You decide on a name?”

“James.”

“...not going with something more creative?”

“I’m dead as far as history is concerned.” He shrugs minutely, sips his coffee. “Cecilia is creative?”

Was he..making fun? “Cecilia is very creative," Natasha replies haughtily. She glances around the apartment and concedes. "Not much of an artist though.” 

He chuckles, a rich warm sound she didn’t expect. “And Natasha?”

“And James?” she answers. 

“Tries but isn’t much of one? From what I’ve read, Steve was the artistic one,” James says easily. He looks like he regrets revealing so much an instant later, his expression shuttering. It’s a shame, she thinks. Seeing a little personality was nice.

“He still draws,” she offers. She doesn't tell him she's seen Steve's sketches of him. Too much detail.

“The men were Hydra,” he says, changing the subject. 

“Oh?” Unsurprising. She wasn’t exactly expecting them to be thankful she’d exposed them to the public. “Revenge?”

He hums. “To be determined.”

“They didn’t seem to be planning on killing me in the alley.”

“No, they didn’t,” he agrees. His eyes look left as he thinks back. “A capture attempt."

"Oh yay, we agree." They both know that capture, in this case, was unlikely to be followed up with a cute ransom note. 

"Doesn’t mean they wouldn’t kill you eventually,” he offers.

"Well that's reassuring." 

He raises an eyebrow. 

She finishes her coffee and sets the cup on the table. "Just wonderful."


	3. (Un)Lucky Bugs

Natasha walks past the chain coffee store, reception, and the placid gift store without pausing. Too many recent visits have made her familiar with the layout of this hospital. She takes the elevator and walks down the hallway, filtering out the quietly murmured conversations coming from the various rooms. Reaching her destination she listens for a moment, and hearing no other visitors in the room, enters. 

Her mouth twists. _Damn_.

It _is_ him. Dark hair fanned out limply on the pillow, familiar face bruised and sleeping. Or maybe not sleeping, based on the extensive injuries and IV drips. She shakes him, hard enough that he should rouse, but not so much that it would disturb his treatment. No response. She grabs his chart and skims it. 

_Double damn_. 

So much for easy answers. 

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Natasha sighs and slumps into the visitor's chair. “You idiot.”

With little to do, she reads his chart more thoroughly, deducing that he won’t be discharged all that soon. No super-serum in his veins like Steve, nor tricks like Fury. She replaces the chart and makes her way out of the room in problem solving mode. 

She makes a call as she slots some coins into a nearby vending machine. 

“Hey honey, You out right now?” She listens. “Well listen up, ‘cause I’m only saying it once. You were right. I don’t know if it’s the hospital, or the coffee I had, but I feel like I’ve caught a bug. Can you-?” She moues. “You’re a darling. I’ll see you home tonight? Wonderful. Bye dear!”

The call terminates as the last of her bounty falls down for pickup. She returns to the room, cracking open the plastic pop bottle and taking a drink. Hospitals, such dry places. She replaces the cap and shakes. 

“Oops.” She unscrews it without remorse and lets the contents spray out over the bed and floor. A small step forward, arm jerking forwards. “Oh dear.” The remainder of the liquid is upended on the floor. “Whoops. Clumsy me.”

Natasha considers the mess with a critical eye. It needs a finishing touch. She locates a cereal bar in her bag and crushes it in her grip as she pulls it out. She opens it delicately, picking out a few choice pieces of chocolate and cranberry from the crumbs, then shakes the rest out over the blanket and fizzing floor. She crunches down around the sweet mouthful, eyeing her handiwork, and nods.

Half-hurrying down the hall, she runs into a nurse and looking wide-eyed and innocent, informs him that she’d spotted a terrible mess in one of the rooms. On a coma patient! Wasn’t it just terrible? They better call the janitor and they _really_ ought to think of moving the poor man to a cleaner place. 

Mission accomplished, she leaves the floor and checks her phone. 

1 New Message. _Ready_.

Excellent timing. She walks down to the entrance and loiters for a minute, looking at the coffee menu before leaving the hospital. On the street she sticks to fairly populated areas, picking up speed and slowing down at random. From the corner of her eye she spots another pedestrian keeping pace. Amateur. Her phone vibrates.

2 New Messages. _Locked_.”

She considers her options. Used bookstore, a deadend. Jamaican restaurant, interesting menu, too open a layout. Variety store, likely linked to the underground mall. With a sale on chips? Sold. 

Natasha disappears inside, leaving the bug she’d caught from the hospital to her partner. 

-

The air tastes sweet and fresh. He’d forgotten. It has been a long time since his mission parameters had been so loose. A long time since he’d been anywhere but the reset chamber without his mask. 

He likes it. Freedom still feels new and temporary, but it’ll be permanent if he has a say, and his memories say he does. Or that he used to, back when he was merely flecked, not painted, by darkness. 

His prey realizes it has truly lost its quarry and makes a call. It hangs up and slinks dejectedly down the street to a dull blue car. It’s a good choice. Unremarkable, boring. But a car is slightly problematic. His resources are limited. He’s not carrying any tracking bugs. No backup team. No people with clipboards and computers to translate things like license plate numbers into names and locations.

Looks like this will take some old fashioned effort. He sighs and does a couple stretches while the car warms up. He breathes deep, in and out, letting his mind still for the exertion ahead. The car slides out into traffic. Unless it's headed somewhere on a nearby side street, it’ll be a while until it hits a major intersection. _Nice._

Still, no reason to be incautious. The inference just means he doesn't have to follow as closely as he might otherwise. Limbs warm, he sets out at a jog down the pavement parallel to the street. When the car doesn’t make any indication of turning off for a while, it’s time to divert. 

He turns off to a side street and speeds up to a run, following his internal compass as he navigates the zig and zag of residential homes and houses-turned-businesses until he's at the intersection. He slows down and crosses the road to the chain coffee shop at the corner. There are people on the street, but they all seem to be minding their own business. Still, he pulls out his phone and fiddles with it while really watching traffic, leaning against the wall of the shop. If he catches anyone’s eye, they’ll think he's waiting for a friend. 

_Bingo._ The stoplights change and the car is in the left-turning lane. He's pleased for a moment before he realizes that the direction his target is heading could take him to the highway. Not an issue if he was going to take his target out, but this isn’t that sort of mission, yet. His body may be machine enough to keep up with a highway vehicle, but he’s not invisible. 

If this was war, he’d take a car. If he were better equipped, with technology or money, he’d follow with trace or cab. If he doesn't care about being seen, if he doesn't care about breaking more laws. If, if, if. Regaining freedom of choice also carries the weight of morality. Nothing comes without a price. The pedestrian light begins flashing. Not much time left to decide. He makes a face at his phone and heads off at a clip.

The advanced turn light comes on and he watches the car pass him. He breaks into a light run, spying into the buildings he passes by until he finds a tall one without security. A lucky break. He slips inside and takes the stairs, coming out at the highest level he can and searches for a window. The first one he finds is one the wrong side. The second is too small to give him the picture he needs. Finally, he gives up and breaks into an office. The owner has a husband and school-age child. Maybe she’s picking the kid up. It doesn’t matter unless she comes back soon.

Standing at the corner of the window, he can see far enough down the road. He’s probably too late. The car is already gone, or it turned off somewhere. Cursing internally, he waits. Just to be sure. 

A blue car. Wrong shade. A blue car. Wrong model. Grey, black, champagne. Silver, silver, white, red, blue. Dull blue. Going west. His face splits into a feral grin. Enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> More to come, I swear on my cats.


End file.
